The other day I was at a petition table for a small Amnesty International club, trying to get passersby to sign. It was for a group of women in a mid-western country who had been peacefully demonstrating against the regime there, and had been thrown in jail and reportedly tortured there, by the regime, all for peacefully speaking their minds. A boy came by with a group of friends, and when I explained the situation, and how we needed more signatures so we could send the petition to the ambassador of the country and make an impact, and put pressure on him (it was definitely a him - woman rights were nonexistent in that country) to release the women, everyone in the group signed. Except the boy. I talked to him, giving the situation in the less-cencored version I saw in my mind, getting more and more agitated as he continued to remain impassive. "It doesn't affect me,"he said, "So why should I care?" This made me furious. It did affect him - people were getting inhumanely treated and suppressed, fellow human beings fully equal to him, and he didn't care?!?
So I tried to put it into a perspective someone this selfish could connect with. "Okay, so let's say you're a woman in this country - "
"I'm not a woman," he interrupted me. "I can't comprehend that."
"Well, for this purpose, you can just pretend you're a woman - "
"No I can't. This doesn't work. I can't fathom what it's like to be a woman because I'm not one."
How can anyone be this closed minded? Didn't he have any imagination? He couldn't help someone because their misfortune, no matter how extreme, didn't affect him, and he couldn't place himself in their shoes because he wasn't in their shoes. This boy was missing some major aspects of life.
My impatience increased. I spun a world for him where women were seen as the superior sex, and he lived in a country where he was especially suppressed. Then, when trying only to say his opinion, he was thrown in jail and tortured, and no one did anything because he was a man. He didn't matter. Then, some people wanted to help him, but they couldn't get enough signatures for anyone to listen to them, because some brat couldn't pick up a pencil and write his name. Or, in this world, it would be a girl who wouldn't sign, as she was of the 'superior' sex. Did he not care because they were women? I wanted to slap his damn closed mind open... and shove in some nice hot coals, and slam it shut again. Then how would he like it?
But he wouldn't sign. I even explained to him how no one would be able to track him down, which they wouldn't care to do anyways, and if he was especially paranoid he could write his signature really illegibly. But he wouldn't. "I can't just put my name on some document." It wasn't just 'some document'. It was a petition to save innocent lives from brutal, inhuman and unjust torture and maybe even from death, and it would not affect him at all except for helping another human being.
But he wouldn't. And our petition was just that much less convincing. In fact, I think we got to 49 signatures.
Imagine how 50 would've looked. Much more influential.
So because of that one boy, those women are much less close to being released.
To quote Shakespeare, he is a, "jarring dismal-dreaming blind-worm!" His, "sin's not accidental, but a trade."
Don't be like him. Help people. Be a good person.
Or for all I care, you can go to Hell.

... I was going to end the post there. But then I realize that that last line implied that I don't care. But I do. I care so much it can be painful. It's a curse I have - I care about everything, whether it affects me or not, and I care a ton. That's why I'm writing this blog. That's why it's so hard for me to understand people - which I can barely call them - like that boy. And it's why I would care if you went to Hell. Because if you were like that boy, I'd want you to experience the pain those other humans had to, that you didn't care enough about to do anything. And once you'd experienced what they'd experience, I'd want you to experience it again and again until you cared.
Just because you were born into a place that is better off than others doesn't mean you might've just as easily been put in their place. And if that were the case, wouldn't you want someone else to care?
So do care. That's the first step. Care about things going on around you, injustices and the harming of others.
And once you care, you'll realize that you can't just sit there and not act.
Whether you look at it like saving yourself, for if you are like that boy, don't you think whatever the final judgement is, it'll go badly for you? or to actually help others, you'll care. And you'll help them.
And I'll thank you.

The Giving Tree

Have you ever read the book 'The Giving Tree' by Shel Silverstein? About a tree who just wanted to help a boy, and he just took what it gave without a thought? Did that book leave you with a feeling contentment, "Ah, good, he got free stuff!" or did it leave you feeling bittersweet, "What a lovely tree, so sad and lonely, this boy grew up and deserted him..."
If you're the first one, you're a monster. But your not alone.
Eons ago, Earth was created from a bunch of debris floating aimlessly through space. It stuck together, and over a period of time that makes our lives turn to less than specks, it became a world full of life. The only place known to us that could tough out years as a barren wasteland, pummeled by angry forces out in space, corrupted with lava and acids... a smoldering world that was on the verge of destruction.
But it pulled through. And then, after another excruciatingly long time of lonely waiting, it transformed into  a place capable of holding life. And up bloomed Mother Nature.
She created this world for life. For us. She stuck it out all this time so that we could be here. Now we go and return the favor by taking her resources with no thanks, using it up and demanding more that she can't give us. Taking it anyways. We're derailing eons of work that she did for us, without a thought.
Monsters. Help her. Work in unity.
Or we'll bring our mother down along with our own doomed race.
There's barely time.

The Human Race

 I am a vampire. Did you know that? I bet you hadn't guessed. There's nothing to give me away. No pearly white skin, no sharp teeth. I don't even sparkle. Isn't it funny, how I said 'pearly'? Aren't pearls meant to be beautiful? Why use a beautiful thing to describe something as horrid as a vampire? How about 'deathly white'? But no. I said pearly white. Because I don't want to be described as deathly white. I didn't ask to be a vampire. Why, just because I am one, am I kicked onto the other side of the fence? The side you're all looking in on with hatred, discriminating  upon like YOU were given Planet Earth (not the other way around) and we're here illegally? Why am I suddenly feared so much I'm pushed into frightening stories and legends? Why am I the one who jerks a small child awake with a piercing scream, because I haunted her dreams without even knowing she existed?
I didn't ask to be a vampire. Trust me, I never wanted to be one. So why do you think it's your right to push me away and inflict me with so much hatred that I hate myself even more? And if I had wanted to be one - would that give you the right?
Why should I even care? We're different species. Why do I feel the need to be accepted by you?
Because your species is consuming the whole world, and everyone in it. For some reason, you do think that the earth is yours, and that you have a right to do what you please with it, without anyone else's consent. "Anyone else" being every other thing on this planet. In fact, you kill us, destroy us, make us extinct.
If you're reading this, you're not dead. That means I haven't sucked your blood and killed you. Because I don't do it unless I actually need to.
So why can't you do the same? Because you think I'm lesser than you? You hate me, you think I'm an animal.
News flash, you're one too. We share this earth. So get over yourself, and do some good for it, or one day we're going to kick you onto the other side of the fence. Except we won't have to, because you'll already have locked yourself over there by destroying our world. But the gate isn't locked yet. You can still prevent this.
It's not a matter of whether you can or can't. It's whether you will or won't.
I suggest you do.

Is the End of the World Even Coming?

Well, first you've got to figure out what you think of as 'the end of the world'. When the sun changes form and the Earth is either lost in the freezing, dark fathoms of space or blown into a million pieces? Or when humans can no longer exist on the Earth? What?
Well, I think that if we continue to go down the path we're on, assuming the Earth somehow manages to withstand all of the beatings it will get while we're traveling, and that we don't wipe out all of our resources, I think that we will become advanced enough to create an environment we will always be able to survive in. So I'm more worried about when we ruin our chances.
This is a blog about the mistakes the human race is making that is causing it to be a pitiful one that will wipe itself out as it as done to countless other species, and how we may prevent those mistakes.
Read this while there's time, people, because there's no much left.
Then act on it.